


Ex Ore Equorum

by softiebee



Series: 30 Day Cheesy Trope Challenge [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: 30 Day Cheesy Tropes Challenge, Homophobic Language, M/M, Secret Admirer, so much of this was difficult, that was a difficult bit, that's ok. that's the point of writing challenges
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-19 06:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8193515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softiebee/pseuds/softiebee
Summary: Ronan gets a series of notes from a secret admirer.





	

**Author's Note:**

> from the prompt: anonymous love letters
> 
> this is a work of fiction. all characters belong to maggie steifvater and the raven cycle series.

The first was wedged into the hinges of Ronan’s locker. It fell to his feet and he didn’t notice it, but Gansey did, and he knelt to pick it up as Ronan slammed the door on his history paper. The hall was almost empty; they were late to a seminar, but Ronan was moving as if his feet were made of lead. 

“Will you hurry up?” Gansey pressed impatiently. 

“Calm yourself down there, Dick,” Ronan said, equally impatiently, and leeched his tongue along his front teeth. “Anything in there? I had a spinach bagel for breakfast.”

“Ugh.” Turning away in disgust, Gansey leaned around the corner and eyed the auditorium doors. “Really, though, Adam’s waiting on us. He said he’d save seats.”

“What are we, amusement park moms?” But he started down the hall anyway, letting his feet cross over each other in a half-swagger. Gansey shook his head and tapped his shoulder with the folded paper. 

“Fell out of your locker,” he said. Ronan took it and stuffed it into his pants pocket. 

As they entered the auditorium, Gansey nodded to the teacher at the door, and Ronan scanned the room for Adam. He spotted his sandy head almost immediately, but when he glanced back for Gansey, he was bent over the teacher’s shoulder, looking at a newspaper article. He let out a frustrated half-breath and stuffed his hands into his pockets, fingers brushing the paper, and went to sit with Adam.

“Hey.” Adam’s voice was a murmur. His eyes didn’t move from the speaker, a short, gray-haired man who was pacing feverently and with large gestures on stage. Ronan gave a low grunt in response, gaze sticking for a second on Adam’s jawline, and drew the paper out of his pocket, unfolding it and cupping it in his hand to read. After a minute, he read it again, then curled his lip and crumpled it, leaning back in the chair. His cheeks were tinted red.

“What’s that?”

“Some bullshit. I’m going to burn it.”

-

The second was taped to Ronan’s bookbag after Latin. He peeled it off in mild disbelief and studied it. Gansey lifted his chin.

“Why do you keep getting those?”

“I wouldn’t say he keeps getting them,” Adam weighed in. Ronan looked over at him; he had assumed Adam was buried too deep in the Steinbeck he was reading to pay any attention, but apparently not. He arched an eyebrow. Adam shrugged. “Only seen one other one.”

Gansey tilted his head from side to side and pulled a marker down in his journal, slapping it closed on the table. “So what are they?”

“Just guys being dicks.” Ronan clenched his jaw. “Nothing serious. Probably Kavinsky. I’ll take care of it.” He got up, slinging his bag over his shoulder, and flicked Adam’s book on his way out. 

The Aglionby parking lot was cramped and crowded, as usual. Ronan’s BMW was parked next to the Camaro in the grass, and he fell into the seat unceremoniously, noting the absence of Kavinsky’s white Mitsubishi. Of course. Who else?

Ronan twisted the keys in the ignition and hit the gas before he had released the parking brake. He didn’t even have to look back to know the shape of the dark marks he’d left in the lawn. The last time he’d done this, it was with Adam, and they had been in a lot behind Maucher’s butcher shop, driving in reckless circles until there was more ditch than dirt. Ronan’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, and he pressed the car further, towards Main Street. A light turned yellow, then red, and the BMW slowed to a stop.

It was times like this that Ronan wished he wanted it to be Kavinsky. Wouldn’t that make it easier?

-

The third was sticking out of the driver’s side door handle. Ronan ripped it off and crumpled it without missing a beat, throwing it into the seat. Adam leaned back on his heels, hooking a thumb into the strap of his messenger bag, and asked, “Why do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what?” Ronan kicked his bag into the backseat and slammed the door. “Get in, or I’m not taking you.”

Somehow, Adam got in, fitting his long legs into the short space Blue had left in the passenger seat. “You don’t have to take me to work, you know. I have my car.”

Ronan tried not to be distracted by Adam’s tan skin, by the mole on his wrist, by his too-long hair and his too-small sweater. “The sweatshop is four miles away, Parrish. It would take your piece of ass rustbucket a half hour to get there, and you might lose a wheel on the way. I don’t want to have to deal with that.”

Adam muttered something unintelligible in response, but Ronan ignored it. He turned on the stereo and something unapologetically rhythmless burst through the speakers. 

-

The fourth was wrinkled and pressed into Ronan’s calculus textbook. They were studying at the library - Gansey had left Monmouth, for once - and Ronan hadn’t been concentrating for a second, not with Adam’s car oil cologne and the ripped hem of his T-shirt next to him. Adam, on the other hand, had been rewriting notes for his European literature class for two hours, and had taken up seven pages of paper with neat, slanted lettering, and Gansey had so far typed four pages of an essay. Ronan pushed his chair back and read it under the table.

-

The fifth was in progress on Adam’s desk when Ronan knocked on the door of his apartment at St. Agnes. He let himself in before Adam could, falling onto the bed despite its groans of protest. Adam watched him pensively from his chair, and he stretched up against the wall, folding his arms behind his head. 

“Got something to tell me?”

“Considering you’re the one who let yourself in uninvited at eleven o’clock at night, shouldn’t I be the one asking you that question?” Adam’s voice was dry, but Ronan caught the waver at the end. He nodded his head back and forth until his neck cracked.

“I mean, you’ve already told me quite a bit.”

“What do you mean?”

Ronan pulled a sheath of papers out of his pocket and flicked them across the room. They landed in a scattered mess on the floor, and Ronan watched the knob in Adam’s throat bob as he swallowed. God. Ronan closed his eyes briefly, muting the whispers of doubt in the back of his head, and when he opened them again, Adam had turned back to the work on his desk. “Not much of an explanation there.”

“Guess not.” Ronan twisted so that his back was flat on the bed and propped his feet up against the wall. “But you know, I was thinking about who knew all the shit in there, and it’s not Kavinsky.”

When he looked over, Adam’s shoulders had tensed. He continued.

“And who would know where to hide them.”

“Ronan-”

“You know, if you thought I was so pretty, you could have told me.”

Adam’s cheeks were burning. “Fuck off.”

“So what are you writing?” Ronan sat up, craned his neck towards the papers. “More fuck-all princessy love letters? Trying to get under my skin? Really, way to go, Adam, way to pull some half-ass joke-”

“It’s not” - Adam pushed himself out of his chair and took a harsh step towards Ronan, then another - “a damn _joke_ , Lynch. I mean, Christ, if I’d known you’d take it like this I would never have started. So what? So you’re going to get angry about this now? Disappointed?” He was getting closer and closer to Ronan, almost stepping on his shoes. “I bet,” he spat, “I bet if I was Kavinsky, you’d be all over this. That’s what you wanted, right? That’s what you thought?” 

“So what if it was?” Ronan’s voice rose. “Just because that’s what I thought doesn’t mean it’s what I wanted. _Fuck_.”

“So what did you want?” Adam was almost shouting, hands digging into the mattress on either side of Ronan. 

“ _You_ , you dipshit! I wanted it to be you! And your stupid fucking handwriting gave it away, I mean, Jesus, who else? Who else could it possibly be, who knew all of that? And for what, some crack at how I’m _gay_ and _queer_ and a total _fag_ \- why did you even start? Couldn’t you have just left it alone?”

“That wasn’t why.”

“Then what was it? Just fucking enlighten me. What was it?”

Adam looked at him hard, and Ronan clenched his jaw. At some point, his hand had knotted itself just below the collar of Adam’s shirt so hard his knuckles were turning white, and Adam was so close to him that Ronan could feel the warmth of his skin, see the pounding of his heartbeat. His eyes flicked to Ronan’s mouth.

“Adam!” The door to the apartment burst open, and they sprang apart as if burned. Gansey was holding an open book excitedly, hair falling into his eyes, and he was talking so quickly it was hard for Ronan to comprehend. He took the opportunity to push himself back on Adam’s bed and rest his head against the wall. “Listen, I found this new theory about the ley line. It’s always been assumed that they buried Glendower here because of the energy, but it’s possible that before he was buried, the energy was less focused and just sort of gathered around the ley line, and his burial was like a magnet. If you compare readings- oh. Ronan.” Gansey’s face pinked, and he took in the scene: Adam’s rumpled shirt, Ronan on the bed, papers strewn across the floor and desk. “Did I interrupt?”

“Nah, Dick.” Ronan lifted himself from the bed and walked across the room, cuffing Gansey’s shoulder on his way out. “See you later,” he said, not to one or the other, and slammed the door shut behind him.

-

There wasn’t a sixth. There was just Adam, on Ronan’s bed at Monmouth, and Ronan standing in the door.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Came to talk about yesterday.”

Ronan closed the door behind him warily and went to sit on the bed, positioning himself against the footboard so that his legs were pressed to the wall. “Huh.”

“Huh.” 

There was a silence. Ronan looked at the ceiling. Adam looked at Ronan.

“Stop staring at me.”

“Why?”

“Maybe it makes me uncomfortable.”

“Never seemed to bother you to stare at me.”

“Never seemed to bother you to be stared at.”

“Maybe not.”

Ronan closed his eyes. “So what? You’re here to confront me about all this? Is that what those notes were? Because that’s really smooth, Parrish. Really top notch.”

“Stop putting words in my mouth.”

He muttered something under his breath and pulled himself up into a sitting position at the end of the bed. “I wouldn’t have to if you would just _spit it out._ ”

Adam shook his head. “I thought I already did.”

“If you already did, it should be easy enough to do it again.”

“Don’t be such a dick. Everything’s in there. Did you even read them?”

“Of course I read them. I have _such_ beautiful eyelashes. And my tattoo is distracting.”

“ _Yes._ ” 

For the first time, Ronan felt unnerved. Adam was leaning towards him, pushing himself forward with hands twisted in Ronan’s sheets, and he was looking at Ronan with his face stripped bare. 

“What else?”

“Your bracelets,” Adam said matter-of-factly, and Ronan could have taken it in stride if Adam hadn’t reached out and slipped a finger under one of the leather cords. As it was, he choked on his breath. “The buttons on your shirts… they’re always undone at the top. Your tie.” Adam’s hands were brushing his neck, and he was looking at Ronan’s mouth again, like he wanted to drink him in. “Your jaw, right here” - he pressed a finger just under Ronan’s ear - “and your hair, and the way you crack your thumb when you’re annoyed at something…” 

His fingers skipped over Ronan’s mouth, and then he was leaning forward, and Ronan couldn’t stay still any more. His hands, almost of their own accord, slipped around Adam’s waist and pulled him into his lap, and Adam made a low noise in the back of his throat that Ronan tried to catch on his tongue. _God._ Kissing Adam Parrish felt like standing under a waterfall and trying to count the drops, and Ronan was all too willing to be overwhelmed in the torrent. A minute passed, or maybe an hour. Adam pulled away first, and Ronan pulled him back. Another minute. Another hour. The sunlight through Ronan’s window turned the whole room pink, and Ronan stopped counting breaths, stopped doing anything except _feeling_ : sight, smell, touch.

Adam pulled away again. His lips were red, and his hair was mussed. “I have work.”

“Skip a shift.” 

“You know I can’t.” 

Ronan groaned, and Adam turned the other way, not that Ronan didn’t catch the edge of his smile. He was reaching down for his shoes and saying over his shoulder, “I’ll be back later,” and then he pressed a kiss to Ronan’s mouth and Ronan stretched back against the footboard, watching him walk to the door. As soon as he had left, Gansey leaned into the room.

“I’m not exactly sure what to do in this situation.”

Ronan flung a pillow at him. “Fuck off, Gansey.”

“Isn’t the proper term fuck _on_? But not me.”

There was a badly stifled snort through the wall. Ronan tried his best to look pissed off in a careless way, but he was already trying too hard not to smile.

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is the first in a set!! i'm challenging myself to a 30 day writing challenge (instead of inktober) to gear up for nano next month. it's the cheesy tropes one, and i'll be posting every day unless i have major tests or projects, in which case i'll post asap after i finish work and studying. the list of prompts is as follows:
> 
> anonymous love letters  
> spin the bottle  
> clothes sharing  
> snowed in  
> fake relationship  
> florist  
> outsider pov  
> love at first ______  
> memory loss  
> online relationship  
> seven minutes in heaven  
> dream meetings  
> stuck in an elevator  
> proposal  
> matchmaking  
> visiting ikea  
> absence makes the heart grow fonder  
> project partners  
> blind date  
> mistletoe  
> truth or dare  
> soulmate markings  
> college au  
> meet the family  
> bed sharing  
> stop annoying me at my day job  
> constant flirting as friends  
> coffee shop  
> drunk kisses  
> accidental confession 
> 
> i'm really pumped for this but keep in mind: these will not be edited and will probably be short and lower quality than other fics. (ordinarily, i write something and sit on it for a week. no such luxury.) if i can't post, i won't post. i might end up posting every other day and keep going with this into november. honestly, i have no idea.
> 
> i hope you enjoy these and feel free to leave comments and kudos! you can find me on tumblr at c-beswater.
> 
> ps: in case you were wondering, what ronan muttered under his breath was "i'll find something else to put in your mouth"


End file.
